One Million Mercernaries: Swiss Soldiers in the Armies of the World

By John McCormack

An account of the Swiss soldiers of fortune who plied their trade in the foreign regiments of European militaries and even the American Civil War. 
 
The white mercenaries who attracted the world’s attention in the Congo during the early 1960s were never more than a few hundred in number. In contrast, no fewer than a million Swiss troops served as mercenaries in the armies of Europe during the preceding 500 years. Swiss mercenaries form a significant strand in the rope of European military history, and this book draws on many French and German-language sources to describe how the Swiss emerged from the isolated valleys of the Alps with a new method of warfare. Their massed columns of pike-carrying infantry were the first foot-soldiers since Roman times who could hold their own against the cavalry. For a brief period at the end of the fifteenth century the Swiss army appeared unbeatable, and after Swiss independence had been ensured they were hired out as mercenaries throughout Europe. Kings and generals competed to hire these elite combat troops. Nearly half of the million served with the French, their centuries of loyal service culminating with the massacre of the Swiss Guards during the French Revolution. Marlborough, Frederick the Great and Napoleon all hired large numbers of Swiss troops, and three Swiss regiments served in the British Army.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Sep 1, 1993
• ISBN: 9781473816909

Book preview

ONE MILLION MERCENARIES

One Million Mercenaries

Swiss Soldiers in the Armies

of the World

by

John McCormack

LEO COOPER

LONDON

First published in Great Britain in 1993 by

LEO COOPER

190 Shaftesbury Avenue, London WC2H 8JL

an imprint of

Pen & Sword Books Ltd,

47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire S70 2AS

Copyright © John McCormack 1993

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 085052 312 5

Typeset by Yorkshire Web, Barnsley, S. Yorks

in Plantin 10 point

Printed by Redwood Books

Trowbridge, Wiltshire

FOR PHILIPPA

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

All the illustrations have been provided by the Musée des Suisses à l’Etranger at the Château de Penthes, Pregny-Chambesy, Geneva, whose assistance is gratefully acknowedged. The originals of illustrations 2, 3, 4 and 5 are in the Musée des Beaux Arts, Basle and of illustrations 8, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 25 in the Swiss National Museum, Zurich.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

We are well aware that God and nature have set you such skill and strength that you yourselves are in a position to defend yourselves against powerful enemies.

Oliver Cromwell – Writings III. 159.

The modern mercenary suddenly arrived on the world’s television screens in the Congo in 1960. Against the background of an African State experiencing a difficult transition from colonialism and riven by civil war appeared the disturbing but fascinating pictures of white guns for hire, described by the media as mercenaries. Who were these paid killers, and what exactly was a mercenary?

During the five years of the Congo troubles, from the Katanga secession in July, 1960, to the end of the Simba War in October, 1965, there were at any one time only about 2–300 mercenaries in the Congo, possibly rising to 500 on occasion. Their impact on public opinion, however, far outweighed their small numbers. The brutalities of war, spotlighted by the television camera for the first time instead of hidden away on some distant battlefield, and the racist overtones of white professional soldiers slaughtering black Africans, created a sinister and troubling image for these new soldiers of fortune.

Most of the mercenary officers were ex-officers or NCOs of the various European armies – Hoare, who fought with the Chindits in Burma, Peters and Wicks were all ex-British army; Denard ex-French marines; Faulques ex-French Foreign Legion; Moeller ex-German army. The Belgian, Schramme was the principal exception, having been drawn into the war through his position as a planter in Katanga. Although some of the rank and file came from similar backgrounds, the majority were young South Africans and Rhodesians without previous military experience.

A UN Official, Dr Mekki Abbas, found that the motives for the mercenaries enlistment ranged from the desire for financial gain, lust for adventure or domestic troubles to the wish to serve for a good cause. For young Afrikaaners enlistment was not too serious a step – the enlistment period was only six months, there was just enough danger to be glamorous without too high a chance of being killed, and if the going got too tough the border was nearby. As will be seen, this mixture of half-understood motivations were the same as those that had driven one million of their Swiss predecessors to join up during the previous five hundred years.

The mercenary phenomenon reappeared at this time because of the special nature of the conflict in the Congo. Guerrilla warfare without major engagements and the absence of a major force of trained regular troops. (The UN troops from Ireland, India, Sweden and Ethiopia were peculiarly ineffective.) The mercenaries developed tactics of highly mobile jeep patrols, that stuck to the highways, and quickly concentrated heavy machine-gun and mortar firepower to compensate for their small numbers. These circumstances were unique to the Congo and the mercenaries’ brief reappearances in Yemen and Biafra were much less successful. Since the Congo, regular army troops serving as military advisers and unofficial combatants have appeared in several war zones, such as the Trucial Oman Scouts, the Cuban advisers in Angola or the American advisers in the early years of the Vietnam conflict.

The mercenary concept that suddenly reappeared in the 1960’s was the antithesis of twentieth century thinking on the composition of armies. The system of universal short service conscription had been introduced by Napoleon, developed by the Prussian army and remained the standard method of recruiting in all Western armies for at least one hundred years. Conscripts were expected to understand and accept with greater or lesser enthusiasm their patriotic duty to defend their country. These new soldiers of fortune contradicted the whole basis on which armies were recruited and wars were fought.

During the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, however, all the armies of Europe had hired foreign troops as a matter of course. Changes in the practice of warfare during this period had led to dramatic increases in the size of armies. When states could not cajole or coerce sufficient of their own citizens into the ranks, they recruited foreign mercenaries. Many of these were rapacious adventurers. Many others were culled from the dregs of society, swept into the army as cannon fodder. But, generally, the foreign regiments were composed of professional soldiers, offering their services for hire according to the terms of agreed contracts. Such mercenaries considered that they were earning their living from a respectable occupation in the largest industry of the time. The best mercenary regiments provided their employers with elite cadres of experienced combat troops.

Switzerland was at the forefront in providing mercenaries to the armies of Europe. Over one million Swiss are estimated to have served as mercenaries in foreign armies between the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries.(1)

The largest recruiter of Swiss mercenaries throughout the period was France. Swiss troops formed around one fifth of the French army from the Italian wars of the early sixteenth century, through the Wars of Religion, the Thirty Years War, and the campaigns of Louis XIV and Louis XV up to the French Revolution. The Prince of Orange described the Swiss regiments as the main nerve of the French army.

In addition to the French army, significant numbers of Swiss mercenaries served in the armies of Holland, Spain, Austria, Sweden, Naples and Savoy, as well as most of the lesser German and Italian states. Smaller numbers served in the British army and in the American Civil War.

The Swiss military tradition was based on the social systems, weapons and tactics developed during the Confederation’s struggle for independence in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The Swiss pike square was perhaps the real Military Revolution of early modern times. Thousands of men on foot were massed together in a huge column armed with long pikes and halberds. This infantry phalanx proved able to defend itself against cavalry for the first time in a millenium and to steam-roller opposing infantry formations. For a period of about fifty years between 1470 and 1515 the Swiss were unbeatable, decisively defeating the Burgundian and Habsburg armies in open battle.

The short-lived Swiss military supremacy ended abruptly at the Battle of Marignano in 1515. Opponents had learned to stop the advance of the infantry square with obstructions and cavalry attacks so that the stationary formation could be destroyed by new gunpowder weapons in the form of artillery and the handheld arquebus. The single-arm Swiss heavy infantry was defeated at Marignano by the combined-arms tactics of the French army led by Francis I. This stunning military setback for the Swiss coincided with a period of political and religious dissension within the Confederation and led to the abandonment of any further territorial aspirations beyond the natural boundaries already established. After Marignano the Swiss army never again fought an offensive war outside the borders of Switzerland.

Although Swiss tactics became stereotyped and overtaken by the development of firearms, the Swiss infantry was still widely accepted as the best in Europe. The Great Powers competed to hire Swiss troops and there was a confused period at the beginning of the sixteenth century when official and unofficial contingents served in several armies. In 1516, however, Francis I negotiated a perpetual alliance with his previous adversaries that formed the basis of the nearly three-hundred-year special relationship between France and the Swiss Confederation.

Thousands of Swiss mercenaries served in the French armies during the rest of the Italian Wars, including the defeats at Bicocca and Pavia and the victory at Cerisoles. During the French Wars of Religion, the Swiss maintained a steadfast loyalty to the reigning king and formed the core of the royal army. Despite the turbulent politics of France and constant non-payment of wages, levies of ten and twenty thousand Swiss mercenaries regularly served in France throughout the sixteenth century. The introduction of Capitulations, a sort of military contract, formalized administrative arrangements and enabled the Swiss authorities to stamp out the unauthorized raising of troops by other powers. The royal bodyguard, the Cent Suisses, was formed in 1497 and the first permanent regiment in French service, the Swiss Guards, in 1616.

The special relationship with France continued under Louis XIII and Louis XIV. At the accession of the latter twenty-two thousand troops were serving in the French army. Military enterprisers recruited and supplied troops and considerable information is available about the methods of recruitment, the attractions of mercenary service for the Swiss and their conditions of service. The main role of the Swiss regiments was to anchor the centre of the French battle line, for example at Dreux, Ivry, Rocroy and Steinkerque. Brantôme commented, When we have a body of Swiss in our armies we believe ourselves invincible.

In 1671, Louvois introduced a French standing army and by 1690 seven Swiss line regiments had been formed. Following this development, mercenary service became considerably less attractive, especially when set against new employment opportunities in industry. An increasing proportion of the Swiss regiments consisted of non-Swiss as well as Swiss recruits bribed or tricked into service. Nevertheless, a cadre of officer families that formed a social caste known as the Patriciat maintained the professionalism and discipline of the Swiss regiments. The climax of Swiss mercenary service came on 10 August, 1792, with the massacre of six hundred Swiss soldiers charged with defending the Tuileries against the Paris mob.

Whilst the majority fought with the French, Swiss mercenaries also served in most of the other armies of Europe. Holland in particular was able to recruit large numbers from the Protestant cantons, which were always suspicious of the Catholic kings of France.

In 1792 the Swiss regiments were all disbanded from the French army and in 1848 mercenary service was formally banned under the Swiss constitution. Declining numbers served in the nineteenth century under Napoleon, in the British army, in the Neapolitan army, and some four thousand in the American Civil War. Increasingly, however, these were individuals following their own inclinations rather than the organized exodus of thousands of Swiss mercenaries that had taken place in previous centuries.

The final remnant today of the Swiss as soldiers in the pay of foreign states is the Papal Guard. The slightly ludicrous picture presented by this largely ceremonial anachronism should not degrade the serious history of the Swiss mercenary. For two hundred years in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the Swiss were one of the strongest military powers in Europe. For another three hundred years, to the close of the eighteenth century, Swiss soldiers played a prominent role on the battlefields of Europe in the service of foreign states. The Swiss deserve to be recognized as an important strand in the rope of European military development throughout the early modern period.

The principal objective of this book is to provide a better appreciation of the Swiss mercenary for the English-speaking reader, who may not have access to all the German and French texts. While Oman and Delbrück, the doyens of military history, were clear that the triumph of infantry over cavalry for the first time since the Roman era represented a real military revolution, later English military historians have been more concerned with debating whether the tactical changes of the early seventeenth century represent a development of similar importance. Even authorities on early modern military history are not well informed about the Swiss. Hale(2) believes that Voltaire rather than Racine is the source of the famous quotation No money, no Swiss. McNeil(3) thinks the Swiss managed to march in hedgehog formation, while Addington(4) writes that the Spanish won the Battle of Novara and lost the Battle of Marignano. Ropp(5) believes that enfants perdus were the dregs of society. There deserves to be a better understanding of why soldiers from the small country of Switzerland came to play such a prominent role in the armies of Europe for five hundred years.

As the bibliography shows, a large number of books and articles have been published on different aspects of Swiss military history. The emphasis of the different works is noticeably language-related. The French-speaking works from Zurlauben and May de Romainmotier through Vallière to Bory concentrate on the Swiss in the service of France. Early German-speaking authors such as von Rodt, Elgger and Häne, and more recently Schaufelberger, concentrate on the formative period of the Swiss military system. Later German-speaking authors such as Allemann, Suter and Bührer have intensively researched specific features of the mercenary business. None of the Swiss authors appears to have paid overdue attention to the broader investigations of early modern military history by English-speaking historians.

Curiously, not since Vallière’s Honneur et Fidélité was published in its updated second edition of 1940 has there been a comprehensive study of the Swiss mercenary in any language. Even Vallière has limitations. While beautifully produced and a mine of information, Vallière’s book tends to be effusive on the glorious exploits of the Swiss in general and individual officers in particular, but does not adequately discuss the social, economic and military reasons for the growth and decline of the Swiss mercenary system.

There seems to be room for a work that pulls together the published information that is spread through several languages and that draws on the latest research on the subject. As Duffy comments, the aim is not to compile a history which will be complete or authoritative but merely one that will perhaps bring together things which have not been brought together before.(6) In particular the visibility of the Swiss mercenary to the English-speaking world should be dramatically improved.

It is with some trepidation that I tackle this objective. Firstly, a history spanning several centuries inevitably entails less depth of knowledge than that available to experts on particular periods. Secondly, I am conscious that the sources on which this history is based are largely the work of Swiss historians, many of whom have themselves been serving officers or are the scions of military families. There is an understandable Swiss tendency to consider that the role played by their own ancestors was decisive in securing victory in every engagement in which they participated. Hopefully, any Marlborough or Wellington buffs will allow some latitude on both points, and any Swiss readers will be supportive of this attempt to bring an illustrious history to the attention of a wider audience.

The Swiss fought in greater or lesser numbers in just about every campaign waged and battle fought in Europe for a period of more than three hundred years. The battles fought by the Confederation’s own army are important to understanding how the Swiss military system developed and are described in some detail. Otherwise only selected actions are used to illustrate specific points. Swiss participation in famous battles such as Blenheim or Waterloo is briefly recorded for interest. This work does not intend to provide an encyclopaedic (and tedious) listing of all the battles of Western Europe during the period.

To the modern reader the phrase Swiss mercenary is an oxymoron. Twentieth-century Switzerland is renowned as a country of peace and serenity, a suitable home for the United Nations and the Red Cross. By contrast the term mercenary conjures images of bloodshed and atrocities, of shady deeds and sordid wars in the service of third world dictatorships. This book describes the history of the one million Swiss who followed an honourable military profession far removed from the vilification heaped on their twentieth-century successors.

SECTION ONE

THE MOST POWERFUL ARMY IN EUROPE

MORGARTEN TO MARIGNANO

1315–1516

I

The Vacuum in the Heart of Europe

On other parts it is environed with a continual wall of steep and horrid mountains, covered all the year long with a crust of ice; not passable at all by armies, and not without much difficulty by single passengers; so that having but that one entrance to it, which before we spake of, no citadel can be made so strong by Art, as this whole country is by Nature.

Heylyn, Cosmographie, 1656.

In the twelfth century travellers from the rich northern plains of Flanders and Germany intent on reaching the southern centre of European prosperity in Italy were forced to swing either east into Austria to cross the Brenner and Simplon passes or west into France to cross the Mont Cenis or Great St Bernard. Routes directly southward led across the Swiss plateau into blind alleys rising up to the impenetrable barrier of the Central Alps. At the end of the cul-de-sacs leading into the mountains was an area of bare mountains, snowfields, heavy forest and alpine uplands. Rugged and menacing, dominated by the high mountains and the long winters, this was a hostile environment for human habitation. Along the valley bottoms small communities scratched a living from subsistence farming. Otherwise the population consisted of such individuals on the fringes of society as hunters, fugitives from justice and monks.(1)

Each isolated valley was inhabited by a closely knit, clan-like community, living largely free from outside interference. These valley communities had developed simple political organizations that facilitated their ability to work together to combat the rigours of the environment. The basic organization was the old German form of rural association(2), to which all the valley’s inhabitants over 16 years of age belonged. The association administered its affairs through a general assembly where every man had a vote and decisions were taken by a majority. A leader or Allemann was elected by the assembly. At first sight this was a community of freemen living in a classical democracy. Usually, however, prominent citizens had considerable influence on decisions by virtue of their persuasive powers or standing in the community, and the system was more oligarchic than democratic. It is also important to realize that these freemen were not defending the modern concept of personal liberty but their collective liberty to practice the customs and activities they needed in order to survive in their precarious balance with the environment.

The valley communities were loosely grouped together in cantonal structures, the three cantons Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden being collectively known as the Waldstaette. This isolated enclave in the centre of Europe was largely ignored by the feudal lords to whom nominal allegiance was owed within the Holy Roman Empire, especially as the Zähringer and the Kyburg families, the most important dynasties in the region, died out leaving a political vacuum. Particularly difficult of access, Uri was regarded as the end of the world, its primitiveness symbolized by the wild bull, the aurochs, on its coat of arms.

Two changes took place during the thirteenth century that attracted renewed attention from the lowland princes who had largely forgotten this rural backwater. The first was the increased prosperity that resulted from the spread of pastoral farming. The transhumance system, utilizing the broad expanses of alpine meadows, enabled the widespread and profitable raising of cattle and horses. The spread of pastoralism brought both significant social changes and the need for stronger political organizations in response to additional contacts with the outside world. Disputes with neighbouring communities over cattle stealing and grazing rights on the previously unimportant high alps increased. Trade with the lowlands to export cattle and dairy products in exchange for grain and salt became a way of life and the mountain cantons became interdependent with the market towns at the valley entrances, particularly Lucerne.

The second change that transformed the Waldstaette from a rural backwater to an important strategic location on the political map of Europe, was the opening of the Gotthard Pass in the early thirteenth century. The col itself at 2112 metres had always been passable, the technical difficulty being to bridge the gorge of the Schoellenen in order to provide access to the col from the north. The Devil’s Bridge and a path along the sidewall of the gorge were constructed sometime in the first quarter of the thirteenth century(3). The Gotthard allowed access to new markets in Italy for the pastoral products of the Waldstaette and brought new and profitable economic activity into the region in the form of taxes on travellers, as well as transport-related occupations such as guides, muleteers and innkeepers. The cul-de-sac was opened up to through traffic and not long afterwards two-thirds of the total traffic between the Low Countries and Italy was using the Gotthard.

Long ignored, the Waldstaette in the first half of the thirteenth century attracted renewed attention from the lowland princes, anxious both to share in the growing prosperity of the region and to secure strategic control of the new route linking the two halves of the Holy Roman Empire.

The House of Habsburg had become the dominant feudal power in Central Europe and three centuries of conflict followed as the mountain cantons struggled for their independence.

During the political vacuum between the dying out of the Zähringer and the Kyburg dynasties and the expansion of the Habsburgs, the Waldstaette had taken advantage of their growing prosperity and the political uncertainty to change their constitutional position within the Empire. In 1231 the people of Uri were granted a charter confirming that they had purchased the valley from the Habsburgs. This was followed in 1240 by the Charter of Faenza which similarly took Schwyz under the direct protection of the Empire.(4) During the second half of the century, however, Habsburg influence in the region increased significantly, especially when the aggressive Rudolf became the Emperor. In 1291 the Habsburgs purchased the vital market town of Lucerne and started a blockade of the mountain cantons.

On 1 August, 1291, the representatives of Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden concluded a defensive pact promising each other assistance in case of outside aggression. Modern historians have demonstrated that this was one of many such pacts, and that its wording indeed refers to the previous existence of a similar contract. Nevertheless, the pact of 1291 is the oldest surviving example and is officially recognized as the foundation date of the Swiss Confederation.

The hunters and herders of the mountain cantons had certain unique advantages to help them in their struggle for independence from the Habsburgs. Unlike the lowland farmers, the carrying of arms remained common practice in the mountains. The herders needed to defend their charges against attacks by wild animals and hunting was both a specialized occupation and a regular way of filling the cooking pot. The inhabitants of the mountains were used to a rugged and violent way of life and the widespread practice of family feuds and vendettas further developed their personal belligerence. Their political organization also favoured a strong military tradition in the mountains. Whereas the feudal system increasingly separated the weapon-carrying class from the peasants, free men by definition had the right to bear arms and were expected to do so. Finally, the main military strength of their opponents, the armoured horseman, was much less effective in mountain terrain, as would shortly be demonstrated at Morgarten. The hunters and herders of the mountains, banded together in their political organizations, were the spearhead of the fight for independence.(5)

II

The Battles for Independence

The nature of the country may be such as to contribute to the facility of a national defence. In mountainous countries the people are always most formidable… the inhabitants of mountainous regions have always resisted for a longer time than those of the plains — which is due as much to the difference in the natural features of the countries.

Baron de Jomini, The Art of War

(Napoleon’s Swiss-born General)

The two decades after 1291 saw an uneasy coexistence between the mountain cantons and the increasingly powerful House of Habsburg. Internal dissensions and political developments elsewhere in the Empire distracted the Habsburgs, as otherwise the constant border skirmishes would have escalated into a major confrontation much earlier. In 1314, however, Schwyz attacked the monastery of Einsiedeln, with which it had long been in dispute over certain border pastures. Einsiedeln came under the direct protection of

Reviews for One Million Mercernaries

[jcbrunner · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A well written, a bit rushed survey of Switzerland's no 1 export prior to becoming wealthy, soldiers. The author really captures the irony of the free Swiss aligning themselves with the monarchs of Europe, thus guaranteeing their liberty at the cost of the common people of their masters.